Public Statements

Issue Position: Constitutional Limited Government (10th Amendment)

Issue Position

The 10th Amendment of the US Constitution makes is clear that the Federal Government is not all powerful, it has limits. In particular, any right that the Federal Government has not been explicitly granted is reserved for either the States or the People. Our founders clarified this so that the Federal Government would not create so much inertia that we would lose the independent identities of the several States and so that we would not lose the ability to use the States as laboratories for legal experimentation. Yet, inertia has won out . . . for now. Activist judges, aided by a court packing scandal, have artificially increased the supposed meaning of the Commerce Power and other powers to create an unimaginable scope of Federal control. Our founders would be appalled by the ever increasing size and scope of centralized interference in our lives.

As a Congressman, I will scrutinize legislation that abuses the Commerce Power or other Federal powers. I will seek to return more power to the States and to the People. I will also work with my colleagues in the United States Senate. I will request that they exercise their power to vet judicial candidates regarding the scope of Federal power and the 10th Amendment.